Chinese state media has welcomed Donald Trump’s decision to cut public funding for news outlets Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, which have long reported on authoritarian regimes.
The decision affects thousands of employees – over 1,300 staff at Voice Of America alone have been put on paid leave since Friday’s executive order.
Critics have called the move a setback for democracy, but Beijing’s state newspaper Global Times denounced VOA for its “appalling track record” in reporting on China and said it has “now been discarded by its own government like a dirty rag”.
The White House defended the move, saying it will “ensure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda”.
The cuts target the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which is supported by Congress and funds news outlets including VOA, Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Radio Free Europe. They have won acclaim and international recognition for their reporting in places where press freedom is severely restricted.
VOA has been recognized for its podcast on rare protests in China against Covid lockdowns. But China’s Global Times welcomed the cuts, calling VOA a “lie factory”.
The National Press Club, a leading representative group for US journalists, said the order “undermines America’s long-standing commitment to a free and independent press”.
Founded during World War Two, in part to counter Nazi propaganda, VOA reaches hundreds of millions of people a week in nearly 50 languages. It has broadcast in China, North Korea, communist Cuba, and the former Soviet Union.
